"Tragic failure” forecast for French efforts
pp. 22-25 · Read in the full issue
Defence Expert’S View
An honest effort by the Mitterrand government to find a solution to the pains and problems of New Caledonia and to set the territory on the path to inde pendence appears to oe headed for tragic failure.
Instead of an orderly process of decolonisation, what now seems all but certain to emerge, if on a much smaller canvas, is a situation comparable with that in Northern Ireland, South Afri ca or the Middle East.
In the clash of the irresistible force of Kanak nationalism on the immovable mass of entren ched French settlers the fallout will affect all of the South Pacific.
Since France took possession of New Caledonia in 1853 the territory has been administered as part of the French Republic.
New Caledonians are regarded
Gloom is a ready bed-fellow whenever, and where ver, one surveys the political works of man upon this small planet. As communications improve the messages they bring seem to tell, largely, of violence, oppression and uproar. Racial problems seem to have grown until, today, it sometimes seems that hardly a country is without taint from this expression of man’s inhumanity to man. Since the Second World War, however, the Pacific Islands have been more or less happily immune from such influences. One would be stupid to suggest that all races of the region are in a constant pink cloud of love for each other, but tolerance seemed better than average, and violence rare.
Now this picture has changed by the deterioration of the situation in New Caledonia and the failure of perhaps surprisingly honest efforts by the French to find a peaceful solution. Noted commentator, DE NIS WARNER, editor of “Pacific Defence Reporter," recently visited Noumea and filed this story.
as French citizens and partici pate in the French presidential elections as well as electing two deputies and a senator to the French parliament. Until Presi dent Mitterrand took office there was no thought or inten tion of preparing the territory for independence, either in association with France or fully on its own.
Well aware that the indi genous Melanesian people have not had an equal share in the development of the terri tory, the Mitterrand plan to set the process of independence in motion called for the creation of four regional councils to help in the development of predomi nantly Melanesian areas, an advisory territorial Congress, and finally, in 1987, a referen dum to determine the territory’s future.
A big turn-out of voters for
the regional elections in September saw the militant Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) sweep the polls in three of the four regional councils, while Noumea, home for more than half the population and most of the French, voted heavily for anti-independence candidates.
Eighty per cent of the Melanesians voted for candi dates who want independence, but 61 per cent - the local French claim the figure is really 65 per cent of the whole population voted for candidates who will resist independence at almost any cost or price.
Confident that the Socialists will be thrown out of office in the French elections next March, the anti-independence groups are thumbing their noses at the present French government, believing there will be no independence, while the Kanaks are warning that there will be bloodshed if there is not.
“There will be violence and bloodshed,” says Suzanne Ounei, of the FLNKS. “It will be very violent; very bloody.”
The chairman of the newly created Noumea regional coun cil is a tall French lawyer, Jean Leques. He is regarded as a moderate, but, in common with almost all other Frenchmen here, he opposes independ ence.
“The best thing is for France to stay,” he told me. “I don’t want this to become Commun ist.”
Mr Leques spoke of the visit to Libya last year by Melane sians looking for support in their drive for independence. “I am sure Russia will be very in terested in New Caledonia,” he said.
“In the last war, New Caledo nia was a sort of unsinkable aircraft carrier. If the Japanese had ever come here, Australia would have been in much trouble, and might even have been invaded.”
The Communists, he added, had followers in New Caledo nia.
All of this is no doubt true, but what Mr Leques, and many of the 61 per cent of the French and others who oppose inde pendence, do not appreciate is that in the coming confronta tion, the almost inevitable bloodshed must lead to a situa tion in which the Melanesians, if they are denied what they
Fighting back against the slump in New Caledonia’s tourist trade caused by the political troubles, High Chief Hilarion Vendegou (left) and resort owner Georges LePers were among a delegation from the strife-free tourist destination of the Isle of Pines which visited Australia late in October. - Patrick Riviere photo.
believe to be their natural rights, will turn to almost any quarter for support.
Instead of helping to preserve the stability of the South Pacific by their continued presence, the French in New Caledonia may well help to create the conditions which outside pow ers may see the opportunity to exploit.
In October the newly-elected Congress with its anti-inde pendence majority threw the hat into the ring when it refused even to debate the various ordinances under which the French Government hopes to pave the way to a peaceful transfer of sovereignty, or to offer any advice.
“We wanted to send a mes sage to Paris no indepe dence,” said Mr Leques.
If the message was clear and easily understood in France, it was no less clear to the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front.
Noumea is as pleasant a town as one might hope to find anywhere. Its homes wander across the scattered hill tops,
the better to view the blue waters of the Pacific. The weather is balmy and the beaches are ready made for the tourist trade. The shops and boutiques are filled with exotica from France. The marinas have so many elegant yachts that surely almost everybody in the town must own one.
Many French families have been living here for three or four generations. They claim, with justification, that they have every right to regard New Cale donia as their home. They are there to stay, they say.
The comparison is unfair, but it is difficult to resist the tempta tion to recall similar French attitudes in Indo-China some 35 years ago. The French had been there for a century and intended to stay, and besides, they said, if they abdicated their tasks, the Communists would take over.
In those far-off days, I used to commute between Singapore and Saigon. In Singapore, the customs and immigration offi cials, and the porters at the airport, were Singaporeans.
In Saigon, even the porters were French. For Saigon read Noumea. A Frenchman stamps your passport. Another French man examines your bags and a third Frenchman loads them, for the 40-minute drive to Noumea, into a bus also driven by a Frenchman. Even the dazzling flame trees outside the terminal bulding are reminders of the Indo-China connection, as, sadly, is the heavily sand bagged guard post at the end of the runway.
The last census appears on the surface to be a dry as dust set of figures. They are, how ever, immensely revealing, indi cating as they do the fine balance between the various peoples,and the disproportion ate shares of what New Caledo nia has to offer.
At the end of 1983 there were 145,468 inhabitants. Of these, 61,780, or 42 per cent, were Melanesians, and 53,974, or 37 per cent were Europeans.
There were also 18,956 Polynesians and other islan ders,with a sprinkling of In donesians, Chinese, Indo-
Chinese and others.
The Melanesians are concen trated on the outer islands and along the east coast of the main island. Noumea, where about half the population lives, is a predominantly French town.
Some 7500 Melanesians earn their living by farming, compared with only 245 Euro peans. Only four Melanesians are heads of enterprises em ploying 10 or more workers, compared with 156 French.
And so it goes, 589 French public servants to 59 Melane sians, 977 French police to 167 Melanesians, with little or no attempt made to develop local talents.
The seeming affluence of Noumea suggests that it must be backed by a well-developed hinterland, but this is not the case at all. Thanks to contracts written in US dollars, the nickel smelter continues to make reasonable profits despite the low world commodity prices, but after Noumea the next biggest town is Bourail, which has a population said to be no more than 1300.
The surrounding seas teem with fish, but there is no fishing industry. Agriculture has gone backwards in the past century, with cattle introduced from Europe destroying the taro ter races once cultivated by the Melanesians.
Islands that would feed a population many times larger have to import much of their food. If this is a bonus for Australia, which sells $4O mil lion worth of goods to New Caledonia, much of it in food
stuffs, it is another woeful indi cator of how little the French have done in the past to pre pare New Caledonia to stand on its own economic feet.
The French State provides 30 per cent of the budget, and is contributing some $250 mil lion to $3OO million each year, much of it in the way of salaries to the civil servants from metro politan France.
The creation of three of the four regional councils in pre dominantly Melanesian areas is
a recognition by Paris of past neglect, and a recognition, also, of the need for long overdue upcountry development.
Perhaps if the councils get down to hard work, and are provided with sufficient funds, helpful progress will result, but as of recent days the elected members lacked all the infras tructure needed to perform their tasks, while the Territorial Congress, as we saw with the refusal even to debate the French Government’s pro posals, is biding its time in anticipation of a Gaullist victory in France in March.
As one French speaker put it, “we refuse to discuss, refuse to sanction, refuse to participate in the masquerade of democracy to which we have been in vited. ”
On both the Kanak and French sides there are those who will not hesitate to use and have already resorted to terror ist tactics to achieve their aims.
Some French families have already been driven from the hinterland and more are likely to follow. All is quiet in Noumea
itself, although pedestrians on the streets are few after dark.
This is no Beirut, although that does not mean in the years ahead it may not become something like another Belfast.
Confident now that they have the numbers to win an immediate referendum, the New Caledonian French will call for a vote to settle the issue once and for all, as soon as the Gaullists have recovered France.
And it would, of course, settle nothing.
The FLNKS will boycott the referendum, insisting that only those born in the territory should be eligible to vote, and step up the harassment of French settlers in the hinter land.
There is no dialogue between the two sides and none seems likely to develop. As in the case of the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, or the Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, or the blacks and the whites in South Africa, com mon ground does not exist and compromise is a dirty word.
Gaping holes on the top floor of this Noumea building were the offices of Melanesian advancement agencies - before midnight bombers struck. - Sue Williams photo.